Willie Nelson photo by David McClister, courtesy of Lost Highway.

Concerts, politics and awards were the order of the day.

Country music kicked off the final quarter of 2010 with some pretty special moments this past weekend, including iconic live dates by Carrie Underwood and Willie Nelson, a public vote involving Sammy Kershaw and an NFL appearance by Country Music Hall of Fame member Charley Pride.

Country’s big moments included:

• Farm Aid 25 was held Saturday in Milwaukee, where Willie Nelson’s duet partners included new “American Idol” judge Steven Tyler, who made a surprise appearance according to The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. Norah Jones did a cover of Johnny Cash’s “Cry, Cry, Cry”; Kenny Chesney played with a pared-down, two-man band; and the bill included John Mellencamp, Dave Matthews, Neil Young and the Randy Rogers Band.

• Carrie Underwood played the historic Hollywood Bowl for the first time in her career Saturday with her tour partners Billy Currington and Sons Of Sylvia. The Hollywood Bowl Orchestra augmented her band, and The Hollywood Reporter noted the show included one surprise guest: Randy Travis, who teamed with Carrie on “I Told You So.”

• Sammy Kershaw was on the ballot as voters in Louisiana went to the polls to pick a new lientenant governor Saturday. Sammy’s big campaign hook was his commitment to the position — he said he was the only candidate who had no aspirations to become governor. Alas, he finished third. According to WDSU-TV in New Orleans, Secretary of State Jay Dardenne received 28% of the vote, while attorney Caroline Fayard collected 24%. Sammy got 19%.

• Tim McGraw received the True Ally Award when the Men Stopping Violence Awards were handed out Saturday in Atlanta.

• Charley Pride sang the national anthem Sunday before the Tennessee Titans football game at LP Field in Nashville. Charley didn’t bring any good luck with him for the team. The Denver Broncos took the game, 26-20.

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GAC's Bill Cody (r) chats with Randy Travis and Carrie Underwood on the red carpet at the second annual ACM Honors. Photo by Keri Braswell, GAC staff.

Next year will mark the 25th anniversary of Randy Travis’ first album on a major label, Storms Of Life, and he’ll observe the milestone with a project that teams him with a number of fellow artists.

Already pegged for the album are duets with Alan Jackson, Josh Turner, Tim McGraw and Kenny Chesney as Randy mixes new songs with some familiar titles from the past. The older songs include a collaboration with John Anderson on a remake of Randy’s 1986 hit “Diggin’ Up Bones.”

“I didn’t know this,” Randy told The Wilkes-Barre Weekender, “but when it was written, there was actually a third verse to the song, and we added that on the record. And it’s hilarious.”

Just last year, Carrie Underwood released a new version of Randy’s “I Told You So,” and she ended up bringing Randy into the studio to turn it into a duet, eventually winning a Grammy Award with it. Appropriately, Carrie’s planning on joining Randy for this album as well.

“She wants to do something old,” Randy noted, “and I don’t even know what we’re going to do yet.”

The album is expected to come out during the first half of 2011, but it’s not the first time Randy’s tackled a major duets release. His 1990 CD Heroes & Friends featured a dozen guest artists, including Willie Nelson, Merle Haggard, Dolly Parton, George Jones, Roy Rogers, Clint Eastwood and Tammy Wynette.

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Carrie Underwood performs "Cowboy Casanova" at "The 43rd Annual CMA Awards," on Wednesday, Nov. 11, 2009, live from the Sommet Center in Nashville on the ABC Television Network. Photographer: John Russell / CMA

Her “Cowboy Casanova” video is still lodged at No. 2 on GAC’s Top 20 Country Countdown, but Carrie Underwood’s got a new video on the way.

The clip for “Temporary Home” makes its GAC debut on Thursday, and she believes it will put a new spin on the song, which has caused a few folks to shed tears or at least develop a lump in the ol’ throat. The actual song is built around the stories of three people, all of whom are able to put a positive spin on a rough place in their lives by recognizing the transient nature of their situation. The video works a little differently.

“I feel like a video is a new avenue,” Carrie says. “You can kind of take it somewhere else, because you hear the song, you hear the story, you see pictures in your mind already. If you follow it too closely, what’s the point of having a video? I thought this one was a really good approach to it because it’s kind of like one person on their way somewhere, which is a theme of this song. You’re headed someplace, and then they kind of share these special moments with the characters. But through that, I felt like everybody’s on their own journey, and we all cross paths. So I felt like it was close enough to the story, but I felt like it was just far enough away to where, you know, it kind of provided a different angle.”

The “Temporary Home” debut comes in the middle of a hectic week for Carrie. She performed in the Michael Jackson tribute Sunday at the Grammy Awards, where she picked up the fifth trophy of her career for her duet with Randy Travis on “I Told You So.” Bookending the week, she sings the national anthem this Sunday before the Super Bowl in Miami.

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Carrie Underwood rehearses on Sunday, Nov. 8 at the Sommet Center in Downtown Nashville for "The 43rd Annual CMA Awards," which will broadcast live on the ABC Television Network on Wed., Nov. 11th, 8-11PM/ET. Photographer: John Russell / CMA

You can do a little Grammy countdown for Carrie Underwood.

Four… the number of Grammys she’s won to date.

Three… she’s slated to perform on Sunday’s telecast in a Michael Jackson tribute that includes a 3-D segment.

Two… she’s nominated for a pair of trophies in that ceremony.

One… her first-year honor as Best New Artist is the one that really rocked her world.

“When I heard my name called, all I can remember is being numb from excitement and adrenaline,” she blogged on Grammy.com in recalling that New Artist victory. “Since then there have been many awards, and I hope that there will be a few more nominations in the future, but you only get one year to be nominated for this amazing award. If I never win another one, I will always have the Best New Artist Grammy Award in my cabinet to gaze upon. To future winners of this award…cherish every moment of it!”

One country artist, the Zac Brown Band, is in the running for that trophy this year, and a number of pundits predict the group will be making a speech about it when the envelope is opened.

In the meantime, Carrie should be quite busy during the event at the Staples Center in Los Angeles. “Just A Dream” is up for Best Country Female Vocal, and her duet with Randy Travis on “I Told You So” is a contender for Best Country Collaboration. And she’ll join with Celine Dion, Jennifer Hudson, Usher and Smokey Robinson in the salute to Michael Jackson, which will also include the premiere of a 3-D production that Michael had intended to use on his This Is It Tour for “Earth Song.”

Should Carrie win this weekend, it’ll give her Grammy victories four straight years. The same night she won Best New Artist, she also took home the Best Female Country honor for “Jesus, Take The Wheel.” She repeated in that category the following year with “Before He Cheats” and took it again in 2009 with “Last Name.”

The Grammys air on CBS at 8 p.m. ET on Sunday. The pre-telecast, in which most of the 100+ awards will be doled out, will be streamed live on grammy.com beginning at 4 p.m. ET.

In other Carrie news, she’ll sing the National Anthem as part of Super Bowl XLIV pregame festivities at Sun Life Stadium in South Florida on Sunday, February 7, the NFL and CBS announced today.  The performance will be televised live on CBS Sports prior to kickoff. Carrie joins an impressive list of singers who’ve performed the Anthem, including Billy Joel, Diana Ross, Neil Diamond, Whitney Houston, Harry Connick, Jr., Garth Brooks, Natalie Cole, Vanessa Williams, Luther Vandross, Cher, Faith Hill, Mariah Carey, Dixie Chicks, Beyoncé Knowles, Jennifer Hudson and many more.

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Carrie Underwood photo by Matthew Rolston, courtesy of Sony Music Nashville.

Carrie Underwood’s new Play On album is perhaps the most representative of her yet as an artist. Of the 13 songs she recorded, Carrie wrote seven, including the first single, “Cowboy Casanova.”

Coming out of her win on “American Idol,” Carrie was launched straight into the life of an artist, a career she hadn’t actually planned to pursue. She picked up her earliest hits from other songwriters, but she already had a foundation to begin writing her own. After all, she’d done plenty of writing when she pursued a journalism degree before her “AI” tryout.

“I got a lot of practice writing in general, especially in college,” she said in a press conference, according to The Oklahoman. “In high school, I wrote for the school paper. In college, I wrote for the school paper and was always busy writing stories.”

It’s almost impossible to pin Carrie down musically, though. Just this year, she revived the Randy Travis-penned traditional country hit “I Told You So.” “Cowboy Casanova” is a feisty number with a rock-driven chord progression, and Play On features a number of songs with pop-style melodies.

In a way, she’s a microcosm of much of what’s going on in the genre.

It’s “a great time for a lot of different kinds of country music,” she said. “If you turn on the radio you can find something you like, whether you like things that are more kind of contemporary country, or you find more things that are traditional country or more kind of rock-influenced.”

Play On is expected to debut at No. 1 this week on the all-genre Billboard 200 albums chart. On Wednesday, she’ll join Brad Paisley to co-host the 43rd annual Country Music Association Awards at the Sommet Center in Nashville.

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